Freedom, Family and
Faith: The Role of the Media in the 21st Century

May 21, 2002

Distinguished guests from the United States and around
the world, parliamentarians and other leaders on the
invitation committee, dear staff of The Washington
Times, ladies and gentlemen. I deeply appreciate your
taking time from your busy schedules to attend this
gathering.

We are
gathered for the meaningful purposes to celebrate the
20th anniversary of The Washington Times and to look
back on the historical role the Times played during the
rapid changes of the previous century. During these two
decades The Times has grown in dedication and
distinction to become one of the most influential and
significant newspapers in the world today. Its
reputation for integrity and truthful reporting is
unmatched. When I first announced the founding of The
Washington Times in 1982, many people in America
ridiculed me. Some critics predicted that The Times
would only become a mouthpiece for the Unification
Church, or end up as a weekly newspaper read by almost
no one. Others said that even if the newspaper
maintained acceptable quality, it would run out of funds
in only six months.

Yet
year after year, for these past 20 years, The Times has
steadily grown stronger and improved in its quality. The
Washington Times has become one of the world's
most-quoted newspapers. It regularly scoops other major
news media. The newspaper's vast collection of
award-winning news stories, editorial and opinion
columns, illustrations, and photographs is testimony to
the highest standards of journalism. First, I wish to
thank God for bringing us successfully through these
twenty years of accomplishment. I also wish to offer my
praise to all the employees of The Washington Times for
their hard work and dedication. It is through their
efforts that the newspaper has achieved its
well-deserved reputation for distinction in reporting
and excellence. Let's give them all a big round of
applause.

I would
like to take a moment to explain my reasons for
establishing the The Washington Times two decades ago.
It was not for my own personal interest or to promote
the interests of any other organization. In fact, my
decision to launch The Washington Times came while I was
facing trial in New York City on federal tax charges. I
could have felt resentment and anger toward the United
States for bringing malicious charges against me. But
instead, I endeavored to serve and love this nation.
Instead of seeking revenge, I turned around and tried to
help save the destiny of this nation. I founded The
Washington Times as an expression of my love for America
and to fulfill the Will of God, who seeks to establish
America in His Providence.

During
the Cold War, God placed America in a position to
protect worldwide freedom by blocking the attempt by
communism to gain world domination. When the Washington
Star closed down in 1981, this nation's capital was left
with only one newspaper, the Washington Post. This meant
that the capital of the Free World had a limited
perspective on news, issues, and policy, which ignored
the danger of communism and its threat to the entire
world at that time. In the context of God's Will, there
needed to be a newspaper that had the philosophical and
ideological foundation to encourage and enlighten the
people and leaders of America. For months, I waited with
the hope that some patriotic Americans would start a
newspaper in Washington to provide an alternative voice
to the Post. But when it became clear that no one would
do so, I decided we had to do it. Ronald Reagan had been
elected president in a landslide vote. Yet while he
tried to maintain a strong stand against communist
expansion, there was much confusion in Washington over
what America's proper response to the Soviet threat
should be. The Washington Times provided leadership
through thoughtful commentary and objective news and
information to make clear the harsh reality of communist
tyranny.

The
Washington Times editorials and columns supported the
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) at a time when many
were trying to block this critical development. Years
later, former Soviet officials admitted that it was
America's determination to develop SDI that fatally
weakened the resolve of the Soviet leaders. Finally, in
1989 the Berlin Wall was torn down and on Christmas Eve
1991 the Soviet empire collapsed after having held the
world in fear for 74 years. I thank God that the Free
World prevailed in this historical struggle, which truly
was an ideological battle over acknowledging God or not.
It is the principle that God works His will on Earth
through human beings. I do not have the slightest doubt
that God used The Washington Times to help bring an end
to the most pernicious worldwide dictatorship in history
and gave freedom to tens of millions of people!

In the
1980s, the Contras in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and other
countries were fighting for their lives against the
communist Sandinistas who were seeking to seize control
of their countries, slaughtering thousands of people.
While other media failed to recognize the seriousness of
the situation, The Washington Times emphasized through
its stories and columns the dangers of communist
expansion in the hemisphere and why the freedom fighters
should be supported. Once again, The Times' news and
information helped the leaders in Washington stay strong
in their support for the Contras. Today, many people
thank God and The Washington Times for the fact that
freedom and democracy are alive and well in Central
America!

The
mission of The Washington Times, however, was not
finished with the end of the Cold War. The fall of
communism did not automatically lead to world peace. Nor
did it mean that the ideal society that God desires
would establish itself without any further effort on our
part. Accordingly, during The Washington Times' second
decade it had to rise to a new challenge - that of the
"Cultural War," or the fight against the degradation of
values.

God
desired that America maintain its traditional family and
moral values, which had fallen into confusion. Secular
humanism and extreme individualism and selfishness were
on the rise. As a result of these, money and material
goods have become "gods" to people in terms of their
values. This has led to the decline of religion and the
rise of secular humanism, which have led to the
breakdown of families and juvenile delinquency.

We see
evidence of this epidemic everywhere, especially among
our youth: the AIDS epidemic, increased alcoholism and
drug use among young people, teen pregnancies and even
murders in the schools. These are all symptoms that our
society is still very distant from God.

Thus,
ten years ago, at the 10th anniversary celebration for
The Times, I defined another mission for the media. This
is, that the media need to promote ethics and moral
values in our society. For its second ten years, I
envisioned for The Washington Times the task of
contributing to bringing about a moral society. Because
a peaceful world is only possible based on the existence
of peaceful, ideal families, The Times became a
newspaper that helped people understand the importance
of strong moral, family values. Even before the term
"family values" became a popular phrase, every day of
the week The Times was publishing articles highlighting
the breakdown in values and what must be done to return
to a good, moral society based on family values. The
newspaper even began publishing a weekly Family Times
section devoted to these issues. Today, family values
have become an essential piece of the social fabric in
America, even becoming part of the political landscape.
We can be proud of The Washington Times' contribution
that promoted and elevated family values to an essential
part of society in America and the world!

The
first decade of The Washington Times was marked by its
fight for freedom around the world in the midst of the
Cold War. The second decade was marked by the Cultural
War and the emphasis on building families infused with
strong moral values. Now, as we enter the third decade
of The Washington Times, this is the time to emphasize
and support faith, the time to emphasize and support
spiritual values that are based on the faith of each
individual. We must all understand clearly about God and
the spiritual aspect of human life. Freedom at the world
level, moral and ethical values at the family level, and
faith at the individual level. These are the three great
imperatives for our lives and for the media as well.

Freedom, family values, and faith are America's most
fundamental spiritual virtues. The reason The Washington
Times is called "America's newspaper" is that it leads
the way in putting America's philosophical tradition
into practice. Of course, the phrase "America's
newspaper" does not mean that The Times serves only
America for its own sake. Instead, it serves America as
a country that offers itself in service to the world and
all humanity.

Our
lives are not just eighty or one hundred years on this
Earth. We are born into this world through our physical
parents, but we must know that ultimately God is our
Parent. And after we die in this world, we continue to
live in the world of the spirit. Is there any person on
this Earth who can avoid going into the spirit world
when they die? No matter how much money, knowledge or
power he or she accumulated on Earth, everyone is
destined to go into the spirit world eventually. You may
have made great efforts on the Earth to accumulate
money, knowledge or power, but these will not guarantee
your happiness in the spirit world. You would do well to
invest effort to learn about spirit world now, since God
and the spirit world are at the roots of our eternal
lives. In this sense, the spirit world is our hometown.
How can anyone claim to be a true man or a true woman if
he or she does not know God and the spirit world?

This is
the time when each one of us can set his or her faith
compass to God. This is not just Reverend Moon's
teaching, it is the providence of God. As the third
component of freedom, family and faith, this individual
connection to God stems from the same root as America's
founding tradition. I hope that each of you will also
take up this mission of the media as your own and accept
faith as the essential part of your character.

We live
in an age marked externally by an explosive increase in
the quantity of information. The world is overflowing
with information. The development of digital
communications technologies has produced a sea of
information. In the past, it was difficult to get news
from out of the way sources. But now there has been a
revolutionary change and people can be overwhelmed with
the amount of news from all around the world. It the
midst of this quantity, there needs to be responsibility
for the quality of people's lives. While the media can
provide all the facts, they also have the responsibility
to provide values to prevent confusion and to provide
leadership and direction, especially today when the
entire world is flooded with news and information. The
Washington Times and its affiliated media properties are
taking a leading role in this regard.

At the
same time as the miraculous growth of The Washington
Times daily newspaper over the past twenty years, other
media properties have also shown spectacular
development. These include the National Weekly Edition,
which is distributed to subscribers in all 50 states,
presenting the best from The Times daily paper. We also
have Tiempos del Mundo, the Spanish language weekly
newspaper now published in 18 major cities in 16
countries throughout the hemisphere. Of course, there
are sister newspapers in Seoul and New York, the Segye
Ilbo, and in Tokyo, Sekai Nippo. The Middle East Times
presents news and information concerning that
increasingly important region of the world.

Among
the magazines, there are Insight, World & I, and
Washington Golf Monthly. The Washington Times Internet
site is also among the most popular newspaper Web sites
in the country, attracting hundreds of thousands of
people each week who read more than eighteen million
pages of news, opinion, and commentary every month. This
is well coordinated with the telecommunications
industry, including cable television operations, Potomac
Television, Atlantic Video, and the Good Life cable TV
that is delivered to viewers in all 50 states.

The
newest member of our media family is one of the oldest
privately held news services in the world. United Press
International, with almost a hundred years of continuous
operation, provides news all throughout the world. UPI
will soon unveil a major technology breakthrough. It
will have the ability through an aggregated database to
collect stories from all our media properties and sort
them and distribute them based on content and topic to
subscribers around the world.

This
new era of media, with the massive distribution of news
and information, requires leadership and clear guidance
for the betterment of individuals based on values and on
the knowledge of God and spirit world. The Washington
Times and our family of media have been providing this
direction for the past two decades and will continue to
do so into our third decade. My hope is that each one of
you as well will embody the qualities of defending
freedom, promoting family values, and strengthening your
faith in God so that you may become leaders of the
world.

God
bless you and your families, and may God bless The
Washington Times.

Part II

Reagan and
the fight for freedom

President,
paper wage war on communism

Article published
in:

TWO DECADES of dedication
& distinction

Chronicling the first 20 years of The
Washington Times.

Published in conjunction with
Regnery Publishing. 2002. pps. 51-55

When Ronald Reagan rejected
Mikhail Gorbachev’s demand that the United States abandon
the Strategic Defense Initiative and walked out of the
October 1986 summit at Reykjavik, Iceland, The Washington
Times praised the president for “hanging tough” on SDI.

“At Reykjavik, Mr. Reagan
talked softly and carried SDI, a big stick indeed,” observed
The Times in a lead editorial. “Bully for him.” But, The
Times warned, appeasers demanding U.S. disarmament would
blame the president for furthering the Cold War in the face
of Soviet nuclear concessions, such as they were.

“Now the hard part begins.
Since the Soviets have failed to kill SDI at the summit, we
may reasonably expect a propaganda barrage of enormous
intensity,” The Times said. Reagan “easily can turn the
tables” by going to the American people to tell them, “as
his advisers recently told him, that critical SDI components
can be in place within a few years.”

Sure enough, the Los Angeles
Times, the New York Times, and The Washington Post all took
a different take, blaming Reagan for refueling Cold War
tensions.

“The summit failed and it was
Star Wars’ fault,” the Los Angeles Times said, using
pundits’early pejorative nickname for SDI. Reagan threw
away a chance for dramatic reduction in Euromissiles on both
Soviet and U.S. sides for a missle-proof shield that “most
scientists doubt . . . can be built in less than a
generation, if ever, and then only at a cost of billions of
dollars.”

The New York Times praised the
Soviets for promising to give up nuclear missiles in Europe
and to cut arsenals by half over five years, questioning
Reagan’s refusal to accept the deal in exchange for giving
up SDI. “Is there any arms control proposal that would
induce him to accept real restraints on Star Wars?” asked
the “other Times,” the leading voice of the liberal
establishment.

The Post expressed similar
bewilderment, praising Gorbachev’s “breathtaking arms
control payment for [an end to] SDI,” questioning Reagan’s
more far-reaching disarmament offer – complete elimination
of nuclear arms by both sides – calling it his “no offense”
plan. “It is not clear Mr. Reagan had full advice and
consent for his far-reaching ideas on no-offense – ideas
which are extremely controversial inside both the American
government and the Atlantic Alliance.”

Among leading newspapers, The
Washington Times was almost alone in praising Reagan
editorially. Looking back, many analysts agree Reagan’s
unwavering stand on SDI was the beginning of the end of the
Cold War.

Edwin Meeese, chief White
House policy adviser in the first Reagan administration and
attorney general in the second, says The Times arguably was
the single most important newspaper in the president’s
corner as he encouraged the halt of Soviet military
expansionism and the breakup of what he memorably called the
Evil Empire.

The Times made a difference,
Meese says today, in its “accurate portrayal of
administration policies to prevent further Soviet aggression
and to roll back communism expansion by supporting freedom
fighters in Poland, Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua and
Grenada.”

The support of the newspaper,
as expressed on its editorial page, “was extremely valuable
to the president and to those who followed his lead,” says
Meese, now the Ronald Reagan distinguished fellow in public
policy at the Heritage Foundation.

Editorials and commentary in
The Times backed Reagan as he pushed for aid to the rebel
Contras in Nicaragua and the toppling of the Marxist
Sandinista regime there; aid to El Salvador while it was
under siege by Soviet-backed leftist guerrillas; support for
the Solidarity movement in Poland and the anti-Soviet
resistance in Afghanistan; economic warfare against Moscow
and development of SDI.

Rep. David Dreier of
California, the Republican chairman of the House Rules
Committee, recalls that The Times’ “extraordinary coverage
of Central America in the 1980’s especially in Nicaragua and
El Salvador, gave us in Congress the encouragement we needed
to help the Contras win the war” against the communist
government in Nicaragua and the threat of exporting
communism to El Salvador.

“The paper had numerous
stories that gave fair and balanced coverage to the
democratic resistance to communism in Central America that,
along with strong editorial support in the paper, bolstered
us,” Dreier says.

The liberal establishment and
its media organs – particularly the New York Times, The
Washington Post, Time, Newsweek and the TV networks –
roundly attacked the president for nearly every move he made
under what came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine.

“The Times found its editorial
voice during the Reagan administration, and it brought a
different perspective to Washington at a moment which turned
out to be critical in the history of humanity,” says Sen.
Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican. “In fact, The Times was
never so persuasive as when it was making the case for
freedom, and in the end, the Soviet empire collapsed when a
tide of freedom swept across Eastern Europe. Did the Times
help tear down the Berlin Wall and spread freedom to
millions? You bet it did.”

Defense buildup

When Soviet leader Leonid
Brezhnev died in November 1982, The Times noted that during
his 18-year control of the Kremlin, “the U.S.S.R.
conspicuously bypassed the United States in nuclear strike
capacity and in conventional weapons, particularly
submarines.”

Editorials, as well as opinion
columns on the Commentary pages, made a strong case for
building naval forces and questioned whether Reagan’s
initial 10 percent spending increase for defense was enough
to counter the Soviets’ potent submarine capability.

The newspaper was practically
alone backing Reagan’s belief that the Soviet economy was
incapable of supporting a continuing arms race and that, to
secure disarmament, Washington must push Moscow toward
bankruptcy by deploying a dazzling array of new weapons
systems. His goals included a 600-ship Navy, heavy funding
for military research and development, and such weapons as
the B-1 bomber, radar-invisible Stealth aircraft, Trident
submarines and MX, cruise and intermediate-range missiles.

The Times strongly supported
Reagan’s first-term call for continued congressional backing
for the MX missile system, which Democratic leaders tried to
send to the junkyard. The tide started turning in the
president’s favor Aug. 31, 1983, when Soviet fighter planes
shot down an unarmed passenger airliner, Korean Air Lines
Flight 007, over Sakhalin island north of Japan, killing all
269 aboard. An American congressman, Larry McDonald of
Georgia, a Republican, was among the 25 American dead.

A front-page analysis in The
Times of the global repercussions from the KAL shootdown
concluded: “For one day in Washington, there was rare
agreement as a far-away disaster lent an uncommon aura of
common purpose: For one day, almost nobody wanted to talk of
U.S.-Soviet cooperation. Everyone wanted to know why the
Soviets had done it, and to figure out what the United
States could do about it.”

In ensuing weeks and months,
the front page of The Times brimmed with the fallout. The
parliaments of Great Britain, Italy and West Germany
promptly reaffirmed their intent to deploy Pershing II and
Tomahawk cruise missiles in Europe. The Times bannered U.S.
deployment of the first 572 nuclear cruise and Pershing II
missiles to Europe in November 1983 while offering editorial
support for the move, crafted by Reagan and British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Then the Soviets walked out of
talks in Geneva on reducing intermediate-range nuclear
missiles and, two weeks later, pulled out of START talks on
decreasing long-range missiles. Editorials in the New York
Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and other
major newspapers decried the U.S. missile buildup as a
hindrance to world peace.

How wrong history proved they
were. History proved the Reagan-Thatcher policies to be
precisely what the two leaders and their advisers said they
knew to be true: Moscow would be led into spending billions
of rubles to maintain military dominance of Eastern Europe
and its strategic position throughout the world, and the
Soviet Union would be driven into bankruptcy as the U.S.
economy grew through Reagan’s tax cuts and free-market trade
policies.

In a key House action on May
17, 1984, the second anniversary of The Times, the MX
program narrowly survived a 218-212 vote. And before
Reagan’s eight years in office ended in January 1989, the
U.S. arsenal increased by 3,000 combat aircraft, 3,700
strategic missiles and 10,000 tanks.

Nicaragua

Georgie Anne Geyer, a foreign
correspondent with good sources whose syndicated column
appears in The Times, made a solid case in 1983 that the
resistance to the pro-Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua
was broadly based. The Contras weren’t made up only of “Somocistas,”
or followers of former dictator Anastasio Somoza, she wrote,
but included many former Sandinistas such as Eden Pastora as
well as followers of the widely admired anti-Somoza editor
Pedro Joaquin Chamorro.

Congress in 1981 and 1982 had
approved $19 million a year in covert aid to the Contra
rebels in Nicaragua. Despite howls of protest from the New
York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times,
which led a loud media chorus, Congress approved Reagan’s
request for $24 million in aid through mid-1984. But the
lawmakers cut off the aid in protest of the administration’s
role in overseeing the mining of Nicaraguan harbors to block
Soviet and Cuban military assistance to the Sandinistas.

When Sandinista leader Daniel
Ortega traveled to Moscow seeking $200 million in aid, The
Washington Times disclosed the presence of Soviet combat
advisers in Nicaragua. Arnaud de Borchgrave, the new editor
in chief, with a bow to newspaper custom of a century
earlier, announced on May 6, 1985, in a signed editorial on
Page One: “The Washington Times will form a nonprofit, public
corporation, assuming no legal prohibitions, to raise funds
for Nicaragua’s freedom fighters. To start this fund, The
Washington Times will make a $100,000 contribution. Freedom
must be supported, just as the French support of the
American revolution made this country possible.”

A month later, Congress
reversed itself and voted $27 million in non-lethal aid to
the Contras while lifting most restrictions on CIA actions
in the rebels’ behalf. The turn-around was a historic
breakthrough for Nicaragua’s return to democracy.

Even the Los Angeles Times
noted the key role of exclusive disclosures in The
Washington Times: “The Washington Times was the first with
administration reports that Soviet combat advisers had been
spotted alongside Nicaraguan troops in areas of Contra
activity. It was also the first to publish allegations that
House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, Massachusetts
Democrat, had deliberately manipulated the date of a vote on
aid to the Contras in order to block the proposal.”

Despite continued anti-Contra
clamoring by many news organizations, Congress in 1986
approved another $100 million in aid. The U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations vetoed a Soviet-promoted Security
Council resolution upholding a World Court decision to ban
such U.S. aid.

The Washington Post pleaded
with the Senate to block the aid. The Washington Times took
the opposite view in an editorial: “Now it’s up to the
Senate. … Over the past months, we have used up a sizable
pile of newsprint on these pages, urging aid to the
Nicaraguan resistance forces.” The Senate voted 54-46 to
approve the aid.

Over the next two years, The
Times criticized Reagan for lack of vigor in pressuring the
Sandinista regime to keep its word to hold free elections,
and in persuading Congress to provide more Contra aid. In
August 1987, Wesley Pruden warned in “Pruden on Politics”:
“He could be remembered best as the president who lost
Central America.”

In an editorial headlined
“Reagan’s last stand,” The Times reminded the president that
although he had wasted an opportunity to build enduring
support for Nicaraguan freedom fighters, another chance
presented itself with disclosure in The Times on its news
pages that the Sandinistas planned to double the size of
Nicaragua’s army with massive increases in Soviet aid.

The revelation “proved again
that the Sandinistas are a determined communist force,” The
Times said, urging the president to make “a forceful address
to the nation” to win passage of another multimillion-dollar
Contra aid package. Reagan blitzed Congress with a campaign
for $8.1 million in emergency aid, which the lawmakers
passed in a rare Sunday session on Dec. 20, 1987.

A media offensive two months
later produced a 219-211 defeat of further aid. But the
president waged another strong campaign, again with
editorial support in The Times, and won a resounding 345-70
vote in the House for $48 million in humanitarian aid.

“Seldom has there been an
international issue more distorted by the nation’s press
than what the Marxist government in Nicaragua was doing, and
what freedom fighters were doing to counter it there,” Meese
recalls.

But of the role of The Times,
he says: “The paper accurately reported the conduct of
Congress in its ambivalent position of attempting to thwart
Reagan administration efforts to assist Nicaraguan freedom
fighters and at the same time to try to avoid blame if
nations in Central and South America fell to communism.”

In February 1989, The Times
reminded a wavering President Bush that he had sought the
White House on a pledge to remain true to the Contras, and
should not give in to Sandinista proposals. Just hours
before Ortega went on Nicaraguan television to rejoice in
the defeat of resistance troops, Bush announced he would
seek humanitarian aid for the U.S.-backed forces. The
Sandinistas succumbed within a year to long-awaited
elections, in which more than 55 percent of voters chose to
throw them out of office.

The Bush administration
cemented the victory with $300 million in emergency aid for
the new democratic government. The United States lifted
economic sanctions to help jumpstart Nicaragua’s war-ravaged
economy.

El Salvador

The Times was equally resolute
during El Salvador’s decade-long resistance against a
Soviet- and Cuban-backed insurgency by communist
guerrillas. The guerrillas eventually gave up in January
1992 and signed a peace accord with the democratically
elected government to end the bloodiest civil war in recent
Central American history.

Early in the first Reagan
administration, editorials as well as commentary by
authorities on Central America opposed the State
Department’s “two-track policy” for El Salvador. That is,
continued support for the Magana government while opening
negotiations with the guerillas who were trying to overturn
the government.

The Times editorialized: “It’s
surrender. … Negotiations, which the guerrillas have been
unable to command by military means, will cancel out [U.S.
support] and give the country to the guerrillas.” The
newspaper urged Secretary of State George P. Shultz to hold
a firm course following the Reagan Doctrine.

Georgie Ann Geyer kept readers
abreast of the struggle between communist and democratic
forces in Central America. A review of her columns
throughout the decade shows she held U.S. foreign-policy
makers accountable as they inclined to give in to leftist
demands for appeasement of Soviet- and Cuban-backed Marxist
revolutionaries.

Poland and Afghanistan

As the United States rebuffed
Soviet expansionism in its own hemisphere, the growth of the
Solidarity movement in Poland and Moscow’s failing invasion
of Afghanistan spelled the undoing of the Soviet grip on
Eastern Europe. The Times chronicled the burgeoning
political and cultural underground in Poland as Soviet
occupation forces took heavy losses at the hands of Afghan
guerrillas.

Pope John Paul II’s historic
visit to Poland and endorsement of Solidarity on June 12,
1987, was cataclysmic. However, another exclusive broken by
The Times that Friday pushed the pope off the front page.
The headline announced a more profound blow for freedom,
even before the event: “Reagan to Moscow: Tear down the
Wall.”

The Times had obtained an
early draft of Reagan’s now-famous speech in the shadow of
the Berlin Wall, before the White House distributed
embargoed copies to the press. At the time, the newspaper
did not publish a Saturday edition, when the president’s
remarks were to be reported by the rest of the media; since
it had obtained the draft of the speech from unofficial
sources the editors did not feel bound by the embargo, and
published the first word of Reagan’s dramatic challenge to
Gorbachev.

Reagan’s ultimatum to his
Soviet counterpart thus was available first to readers of
The Times: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace,
if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate.
Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down
this wall.”

Vice President George Bush, in
a televised speech, urged Poles to win their freedom from
Soviet control. Two months later, millions of Poles, for
the first time in 41 years, voted for economic and political
reforms that spelled a stunning repudiation of communism and
election of a pro-capitalist Solidarity government.

As the successes of the Afghan
resistance mounted in 1988 and 1989, The Times took Shultz
to task for persuading the president to agree to the
continued presence of Soviet “advisers” even after Moscow
had capitulated the previous year, by signing a treaty to
withdraw all forces from Afghanistan.

The last contingent left Feb.
15, 1989, in a humiliating retreat that signaled the end of
Soviet hegemony throughout Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall,
the firm and fast monument dividing free society from slave
state for 28 years, was opened the following November. The
ride was a fast one from there on.

Soviet breakup

Democratic opposition to the
Soviet dictatorship in Russia had gained a serious
foothold. Boris Yestsin, Communist Party secretary in
Moscow, was sacked in late 1987 for openly criticizing the
slow pace of Gorbachev’s economic reforms.

Yeltsin quickly became leader
of the democratic movement that achieved, in March 1989, the
first multi-candidate parliamentary elections in the Soviet
Union since 1917, winning an at-large seat. This turning
point would force the Communist Party to give up its
monopoly and allow competing parties a year later.

Tony Snow, now Sunday anchor
for Fox News Channel, was editor of the editorial page of
The Times when the Soviet empire began to split apart. Snow
chronicled the visits of conservative American economists to
Moscow to tutor Gorbachev and his communist minions in the
practical workings and benefits of private property
ownership as well as a gold standard for the ruble to create
a valid currency.

Gorbachev’s tutors included
several regular columnists for The Times: Robert B. Zoellick,
who would become U.S. trade representative for the second
President Bush; Paul Craig Roberts, an assistant Treasury
secretary under Reagan; and Jude Wanniski, author of the
“supply-side” economics theory advanced by Jack Kemp.

“Mikhail Gorbachev may be the
most valuable capitalist tool since Adam Smith,” Snow wrote
in The Times in October 1989. “Although his program to
revive the Soviet economy has failed, perestroika has
restored the profession of economics in the United States.
The Soviets, thirsty for secrets about how to produce wealth
and keep a restive public peaceful, have wooed conservative
American economists in hopes of learning something,
anything.”

The Times followed the
political and economic tutoring of Yeltsin by other U.S.
experts and occasional contributors to the Commentary pages
of The Times: Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation,
Richard Rahn of the U.S. Chamber of Congress and Sen. Bob
Kasten, Wisconsin Republican, whose plan for precinct-level
political organizing taught Yeltsin how to win elections at
the grass roots.

The stunning pace of the
Soviet move toward democracy was big news in 1990 and 1991.
The republics of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia all declared
independence. President Bush and Gorbachev signed a trade
treaty and nuclear pact in Washington as the Soviet leader
proposed a 500-day economic reform plan. But Yeltsin, who
had quit the Communist Party, was elected Russia’s president
by popular vote in June 1991.

By some accounts, political
Washington, which is just about all of Washington, witnessed
a confluence of two revolutions in the 1980’s.

“It’s no coincidence that the
Reagan Revolution and The Washington Times came into being
at relatively the same time,” says Jack Kemp, who was
housing and urban development secretary in the Reagan
administration. “The Times in a very short period became
not only widely circulated and even more widely mentioned,
but its influence on the course of events here and around
the world has been unparalleled. The steady flow of
information from The Times’ news pages and its editorial
positions made it possible for the conservative cause and
what I would call the ‘progressive conservative’ cause –
which is conservatism with a reform agenda attached – to
achieve one of the great victories of the last century.”

Reagan himself paid tribute to
news coverage and opinion columns in The Times on the
occasion of the newspaper’s 10th anniversary in
May 1992, three years and four months after he left the
White House. “The American people know the truth,” the
Gipper said in a videotaped message from his ranch outside
Santa Barbara. “You, my friends at The Washington Times,
have told it to them. It wasn’t always the popular thing to
do. But you were a loud and powerful voice.”

Reagan praised The Times as a
partner in his efforts to extend freedom, democracy and
peace throughout the world: “Like me, you arrived in
Washington at the beginning of the most momentous decade of
the century. Together, we rolled up our sleeves and got to
work. And, oh yes: We won the Cold War.”

“The impact of The Washington Times shows up
every day, in that The Washington Post isn’t allowed to say
things that go unchallenged. Every time The Post covers
something, it knows The Times will have a story that isn’t
written from a left viewpoint and is more centrist, and
therefore The Post can’t just quote liberals and not
conservatives.” – Grover Norquist, Republican activist.

Excerpt
from his sermon:

February 23, 1977
New York, New York

If
anybody wants to talk about human rights, then he must
become a strong anti-communist, because nothing in
history has violated human rights more than communism.
Among communists, the phrase "human rights" has no
meaning because communists deny even the right to live.
To them, human life is as worthless as the life of an
insect.

Human
rights are important; we must preserve human rights.
However, the right to live is even more important. We
must secure the right to live for all people under
communist regimes. This is why I am taking such an
adamant stand against communism, and declaring communism
as the enemy of God and of mankind. I will not yield
even one inch from that position.

The
communists know very well that I am their archenemy, and
they are trying to destroy us. We can even find churches
and government people collaborating with the communists
against us. This is a sad situation. Newspapers try to
paint a dark picture: "Reverend Moon is an agent of the
KCIA." It's incredible, just nonsense. My life is not so
small or inconsequential that I would act as a KCIA
agent. My eyes and goal are not just for Korea. America
is my goal; the world is my goal and target.

No
president ever spoke as I did at Yankee Stadium, saying
that this nation is burning and needs a fire fighter
from the outside, that this nation is mortally ill and
needs a doctor from the outside. I came as a fire
fighter to this nation, as a doctor to this nation. At
Washington Monument I said, "Leave the young people to
me. I will rebuild the American youth so that they can
go out to truly liberate the world." No religious
leaders or political leaders in the history of America
ever spoke like this. I did because I have reason to say
such things.

America doesn't understand

ctually, I am deeply mistreated by America. Americans do
not know me. But some day they will realize that I am
truly the most notable and precious VIP that ever came
to this nation. You must know that you are the people
who must fight for this. No one can pull your loyalty
and conviction in God and His kingdom out of your brain.
No one can pull that ideology out of you. No atomic
bomb, no military might, no weapon can do that. You are
becoming invincible individuals now.

I am
not here to please the government or the politicians; I
am a prophet, a messenger of God. Whenever I have
something to say, I will say it, whatever it is. I know
very well that certain government people will be
irritated by my remarks because they do not like to hear
these things. However, I must speak the truth; no one
can stop me from speaking the truth. We cannot trust
anyone. We can only trust ourselves, because we have a
mission ordained by God. We are not here for ourselves;
we must influence the power of the nation because that
is the will of God. A long time ago, I committed my life
to this mission. It does not matter that there is danger
around me; I have already given up my life.

Korea
and America must not break apart. Once that link is
broken, tragedy will come. From the current trend of
history God knows very well what will happen now that
liberalism is rampant and communist infiltration is so
widespread. The situation is very dismal. That is why
God sent me to America as His agent. God asked me to
hold America, to keep America linked with Asia, to
restore His blessing to all the Christian world, and
then to liberate the communists. That is God's mandate.

When I
declared that I would go to Moscow, I meant it. When
they hear me say, "Moscow is our goal ' the communists
will laugh, "How can you?" All right, they can laugh.
Twenty years ago in Korea, in a small room only big
enough for two or three people, with a roof that leaked,
I talked about world unification. I predicted my world
ministry and the sending of missionaries to 120
countries, and I predicted this crusade in America.
Twenty years ago in that small room, everybody thought
those were crazy ideas.

Today,
compared to the size of the communists' power, the New
Yorker Hotel (Unification Church World Mission Center)
is like that small cubbyhole of 20 years ago. We have
only a handful of people, yet we are talking about the
liberation of the communists; we are talking about
Moscow. I am sure most people laugh. Let them laugh now.
I know one thing: In the communist world, the children
of the communist leaders are on the side of God. The
next generation in the Soviet Union will be on my side.

The
spirit world will take care of them. The spirit world
will manifest itself and show the truth to those
children. Those children will fight against their own
fathers; that's God's strategy. God has started that
operation already. Even here in America, spiritual
revelation is coming down to the leadership of this
nation, even to members of Congress. Behind the scenes,
truly astonishing spiritual phenomena are unfolding. The
heavenly spiritual assault has begun.

What
have I been doing in these last several decades? What I
have done as a man in history, representing all of
mankind, is to really declare victory in the name of
God. Before heaven and earth I truly stand now as a
victor in the name of God. No one like that has ever
existed in history.

I had
to suffer the most

could have avoided suffering, but I knew the Principle.
According to that Principle, I have to suffer more than
any other individual here on earth. Throughout thousands
of years of history, men have committed innumerable
dirty, impossible sins. In order to liberate the people
of the world from the sins of history, I have had to go
down to the very bottom of the sinful world.

Part IV

Excerpt
from:

INTRODUCTION TO
THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE
REV. AND MRS. SUN MYUNG MOON

by Dr. Bo Hi Pak

World
Convention of theFederation of Island Nations for World Peace

June 17, 1996,
Tokyo, Japan

Rev. Moon's
analysis of communism and the
Victory-Over-Communism movement

ith this as background, you may know that Reverend Moon
all his life was an ardent opponent of communism; in
particular he had been concerned about the danger to the
free world of Soviet expansionism. Reverend Moon is not
opposed to communism because of its socialist system,
but because of its fundamental atheistic view of life.
It is a power against God and denies the very existence
of God.

Until
its demise, therefore, Rev. Moon looked at communism as
the single worst problem which humanity faced. He often
compared Christianity and communism. Christ came 2,000
years ago and gave the world a powerful message about
truth and love. Christianity has become the world's
largest religion, accepted by one-quarter of the world's
population. But it took 2,000 years!

Communism, on the other hand, was only born in the last
century and yet it came to enslave more people than are
now Christian. In the short span of little more that
half a century, Marxism-Leninism spread like a forest
fire in that time, engulfing more than 1.5 billion
people, taking one nation after another, and spreading
over the entire globe.

He
asked, "What is communism and where does its power come
from?" Communism is more than a political system, more
than a social system, more than an economic system.
Communism is an ideology, a system of thought or godless
religion.

David
Satter, a former Moscow correspondent for The
Financial Times, wrote in The Wall Street Journal
on May 23, 1983 a commentary entitled, "Soviet Threat is
One of Ideas More than Arms." I would like to quote from
that article: "Communism cannot be defeated militarily
and its adherents cannot be bribed into giving it up. It
can be defeated in only one way: by being confronted
with an idea that is better."

No one
knows the true nature of communism better than Rev.
Moon. He gave birth to a better idea, called Godism
or a God-centered worldview. By 1960, Rev. Moon had
developed a powerful international
Victory-Over-Communism movement based on this
God-centered worldview which does two essential things:
(1) it totally exposes the lies and deceptions of
communism, and (2) it presents a clear counterproposal
to the communist views. In other words, the Godism
worldview offers a complete solution to communism.
History will record Rev. Moon as the only one who
proclaimed Victory-Over-Communism, instead of merely
anti-communism.

Rev.
Moon's prediction of the fall of communism

n 1985, in Geneva at an international scholarly
conference, Rev. Moon proclaimed the end of the Soviet
Union within five years! No one believed what he was
saying. The Soviet Union, at that time, seemed to be at
the height of its power. As you know, however, the
collapse of the Berlin Wall came November 9, 1989, which
was the prelude to the downfall of the communist empire.
And the Soviet empire itself came to an end on Christmas
Day 1991.

We are
all fortunate to now live in the post-Cold War era, but
let me elaborate further about the decisive
contributions Rev. Moon made to help bring about the
demise of the communist empire.

Rev.
Moon, whose worldwide movement is headquartered in New
York, has always believed that a strong America is the
key to defeat communism, in particular, strong
presidential leadership.

Rev.
Moon's prediction of the Reagan landslide

n 1980, Reverend Moon stood up and supported the
election of Ronald Reagan as 40th President of the
United States. He saw it as the will of God. At that
time I was president of the newspaper he founded in New
York, The News World. Rev. Moon asked me to go to
see candidate Ronald Reagan in Ohio and give him his
blessing and prediction that his victory would be the
will of God. It was a moving experience between the two
of us in Ohio where I conveyed Rev. Moon's message to
the future President. I recalled candidate Reagan humbly
saying at that time, "I wish I could have as much
confidence in Ronald Reagan as Rev. Moon does."

When
election day came, Nov. 4, 1980, Rev. Moon asked me to
print his prediction in The News World newspaper.
He said, "Print, 'Reagan Landslide' in huge banner
headlines!"

At that
time, everyone thought it was a little crazy. No one
dared to say such a thing. Everybody thought the race
was too close to call. But I took it as my faith. This
is the newspaper we printed: "Reagan Landslide!" We
delivered this newspaper to Ronald Reagan on election
day morning. He was overjoyed. He took the newspaper
with him to a press conference which was televised all
over the country.

On
election day, the American people were befuddled. They
saw the headline "Reagan Landslide" prominently on TV.
"Did he win already?" they wondered. "No, I have not
even voted yet. Did I sleep too long? What's happening
here?" They interpreted "Reagan Landslide" as fact only
because the print identifying it as The News World's
prediction was too small to be visible on the TV screen.
I tell you this was a magnificent strategy. Everybody
likes the winner. They would like to join a winner. The
American people were psychologically prepared for a
"Reagan Landslide" even before they went to the polls.

That
evening by 11 pm, the "Reagan Landslide" had become a
reality. I held a press conference in New York. The
press corps was almost crazy. People were shouting at me
all over the place, "How did you know it would be a
Reagan landslide? How many people did you call to make
this prediction? 1,000? 5,000? 10,000?"

I said,
"No, I called only one person." "What? One person? Who
did you call?" the press asked. "I called Rev. Moon."
"Rev. Moon? Do you mean this was Rev. Moon's
prediction?" I responded, "By all means, it was Rev.
Moon's prediction." People then asked, "How did he
know?" "I heard he made only one telephone call, too."
"Who did he call?" "I understand he called God." "You
mean he called God, the Almighty?" "Yes," I said.
Everyone shouted then, "Could you kindly give us God's
telephone number?" I said, "I'm sorry. It was a
hotline."

It was
an amazing story. The News World became the
premier national newspaper overnight. You have no idea
how moved and inspired I was that night. I cried tears
of joy. I had never experienced such an exciting press
conference in my life.

The
founding of The Washington Times

his was not however the only contribution Rev. Moon has
made. Probably the more significant ongoing contribution
would be the founding of The Washington Times in
Washington, D.C., as the second daily newspaper in the
nation's capital, with a distinct conservative outlook -
or more correctly, God-centered outlook. Could you
imagine what Washington would have been like with only
one daily? This is our headquarters. This is our famous
newsroom. And this is our printing plant.

The
Washington Times has continuously published for the
past 14 years at an aggregate investment of well over
one billion dollars! It was indeed a most precious
investment for freedom. It is now a must-read for all
opinion-makers not only in Washington but all over the
United States, and indeed ranks among the great
newspapers of the world! And, it maintained a staunch
opposition to communism and Soviet expansionism until
the collapse of the Soviet empire.

The
Hon. Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, said upon his inauguration, The
Washington Times "has the real interests of America
at heart."

The
Strategic Defense Initiative

hrough The Washington Times and other
organizations he founded, Rev. Moon staunchly supported
President Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense
Initiative, also known as "Star Wars," to protect the
United States from Soviet nuclear missiles through
space-based defense. This is a Washington Times
political cartoon from that time entitled "Space
Shield." As you well know, one of the critical factors
behind the collapse of the USSR was its sheer inability
to compete with the United States in this area of
cutting-edge technology. Ultimately, President Reagan's
pursuit of SDI was a kind of trump card, upon which the
Soviets could only throw up their arms in defeat. Yet
Reagan could not do it until The Washington Times
swayed public opinion decisively towards support of SDI.

Reagan
thanked Rev. Moon

hen Reagan's term was almost over, he invited me, as the
President and Publisher of The Washington Times,
to the Oval Office in the White House. As can be seen in
this picture, he firmly shook my hand in appreciation
and said, "Dr. Pak, no one appreciates the value of
The Washington Times more than I. Without The
Washington Times, my Reagan Doctrine would have been
a failure. It could not have triumphed over the Brezhnev
Doctrine. Would you kindly convey my deep thanks and
appreciation to Rev. Moon, the founder of The
Washington Times, who made this most precious
investment for freedom?" At this point, may I invite you
to give one warm round of applause for President Reagan?

George
Bush and the end of communism

he Washington Times also supported the 1988
election of George Bush as the 41st president of the
United States. Today, we should give more appreciation
to those great heroes, Presidents Ronald Reagan and
George Bush, as the liberators of the communist empire.
But in my heart, behind the scenes, who produced these
two heroes? It was Rev. Moon and God.

Rev.
and Mrs. Moon's visit to Moscow

ev. and Mrs. Moon boldly entered Moscow in April 1990
and had a one-on-one meeting in the Kremlin with Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev. This was another miracle to
have occurred. Rev. Moon conveyed his support to
Gorbachev of his policies of glasnost and
perestroika. I was there to translate that
extraordinary meeting. Rev. Moon persuaded Gorbachev to
allow religious freedom, to allow God to enter the
Soviet Union. In my opinion, this meeting was crucially
important in the sight of God. It was, in a way, the
beginning of a peaceful process of the demise of the
Soviet empire. Rev. Moon indeed motivated Gorbachev in
the direction of peaceful reform. The greatest miracle
that occurred in this century was the liberation of the
Soviet Union without nuclear war. The threat of nuclear
war was the single greatest concern of Rev. Moon. He
said, "Thank God, not a single nuclear weapon was used
against mankind since 1945." Clearly, it was God who
dismantled the Evil Empire.

Rev.
and Mrs. Moon's visit to Pyongyang

fter that meeting with President Gorbachev, Rev. Moon
told me, "Now I must meet with Kim Il Sung." I was
shocked. It was a sheer impossibility. Yet Rev. Moon
said, "God will lead me to Pyongyang." Why was he so
determined to see Kim Il Sung? Because he saw the end of
the Soviet Union coming, Rev. Moon's concern shifted to
another part of the world, the Korean Peninsula, a
potential powderkeg. He saw his next mission: to prevent
the outbreak of another war on the Korean Peninsula. He
decided to go to Pyongyang to meet with President Kim Il
Sung to reassure him that even if the Soviet state
perished, that would not mean the end of North Korea. He
did not want that isolated country to feel trapped and
miscalculate. Knowing the tragedy of the 1950s, Rev.
Moon indeed wants to prevent at any cost another
outbreak of hostilities on the Korean peninsula.

On Nov.
30, 1991, I escorted Rev. and Mrs. Moon on a special
flight to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. Six days
later, the world's foremost anticommunist, Rev. Moon,
embraced with President Kim Il Sung and sat down with
the world's foremost communist dictator in the
presidential palace. I was there as the entire world was
shocked by this news. Yet for me, it was probably the
greatest, warmest, most hospitable peace-making event
ever on the face of the earth. Simply I want to say,
Rev. Moon prevented another Korean War by assuring
President Kim he would be a friend and brother, and look
after his well-being.

This is
a memorial photo of Rev. and Mrs. Moon and President
Kim. Notice they are holding hands like brothers. This
was very unusual in that country, particularly with
President Kim. The next photo is my wife and myself.

Kim Il
Sung passed away on July 8, 1994. Mr. Antonio Betancourt
and I went to Pyongyang to represent Rev. and Mrs. Moon
and mourn the late president. I was proud to be part of
this humanitarian gesture and to convey the condolences
of Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon. I was the only outside
mourner to be received by top leader, Secretary Kim Jong
Il, heir of his father, President Kim Il Sung. This time
though I hold his hand. Today, Rev. Moon is a world
leader whom North Korea can trust. For this reason, Rev.
Moon played the pivotal role in bringing about the
nuclear agreement between the United States and North
Korea in October 1994. This has been and will remain the
greatest task - maintaining peace in this part of the
world, Northeast Asia.

Part V

CAUSA

Reverend Moon understood
that the United States of America had
a crucial role in the struggle against
communism. America possessed the resources
to confront communism, but it lacked
the vision and willpower to fulfill
its responsibility. When Reverend Moon
arrived in the United States in 1972,
he quickly realized that the American
youth were caught in a morass of moral
and ideological confusion, provoked
by the controversy surrounding the American
presence in Vietnam. Wherever he spoke,
he reminded Americans of the vision
of its founding fathers and called on
civic and religious leaders to awaken
to the ideological and geopolitical threat of communism.

In a
21-city speaking tour in 1973, Reverend Moon preached
that God had chosen the United States as the nation to
stand up against communism. He repeated this message in
several addresses before the U.S. Congress. Yet most
Americans turned a deaf ear. Reverend Moon sadly
accepted that the responsibility for addressing Marxism
-Leninism would now fall primarily upon his shoulders.
He founded CAUSA as one part of a multi-faceted effort
to combat the communist threat.

In early 1980,
under the direction of Reverend Moon, Dr. Bo Hi Pak,
Antonio Betancourt and Antonio Rodriguez Carmona, later editor
of Noticias del Mundo, traveled throughout
Latin America and met various heads
of state. These included presidents
Rodrigo Carazo Odio of Costa Rica, Aparicio
Mendez of Uruguay, Augusto Pinochet
of Chile, Napoleon Duarte of El Salvador,
Jorge Blanco of the Dominican Republic,
Rios Montt of Guatemala, Roberto Suazo
Cordovo of Honduras, and Alfredo Stroessner
of Paraguay. Despite their varying political
views, all of these Latin American heads
of state expressed an interest in hearing
an ideological response to Marxism.

Heartened by the genuine interest
expressed by Latin American governmental,
religious, and civic leaders, Reverend
Moon established CAUSA International.
The first nation to express an interest
in the CAUSA program was Bolivia. The
first CAUSA seminar took place there
in December 1980.

Before the CAUSA staff left for Bolivia, Reverend
Moon instructed them about the attitude of
the lecturer. He emphasized the importance
of prayer: "If you give a lecture for two
hours, you should pray for six hours beforehand.
Then, when you stand to give the lecture you
will know that God is with you. What you say
should be pleasing to God. If God is pleased,
then I am pleased. You go to do the work of
God."

At the close of the workshop, the participants
were spiritually and intellectually renewed.
They were eager to teach the CAUSA lectures
themselves. The Bolivian officials who came
to the closing ceremony were impressed to
see the forty-five young people, many with
Marxist tendencies prior to the seminar, transformed
in their views on communism and awakened to
the reality of God. CAUSA programs expanded
rapidly throughout Latin America, and eventually
to North America, Europe and Africa. Hundreds
of seminars were conducted during the 1980s.

CAUSA developed social service projects,
in collaboration with the International Relief
Friendship Foundation (IRFF).
In 1982, CAUSA distributed food for victims
of severe flooding in the jungle areas of
northeastern Bolivia. CAUSA also assisted
in the building of schools and orphanages
in Bolivia and in Honduras.

CAUSA International began
holding seminars for North American
audiences in 1983 and for Europeans
in 1984. CAUSA activities jumped
in 1984, the year many Christian
ministers became concerned over
the government's prosecution of
Reverend Moon, which they saw
as a violation of religious freedom.
Reverend Moon emphasized that
Marxism Leninism posed an even
greater threat to religious freedom,
and encouraged the ministers to
attend CAUSA seminars. In 1985
the CAUSA Ministerial Alliance
(CMA) was created to reach out
to members of the clergy.

Beginning in December
1985, CAUSA began to conduct seminars
for state legislators, mayors and city
councilmen. Early program attendees
had the opportunity to hear such dignitaries
as Senators Jeremiah Denton, Al Gore,
Jesse Helms and Charles Grassley; Congressmen
Mark Siljander and John McCain; National
Security Council member Constantine
Menges; National Education Association
President Mary Hatwood Futrell ;and
White House spokespersons Mona Charen
and Larry Tracy. On several occasions
conference participants were invited
to the White House for special briefings.
The American Leadership Conferences
(ALC), as they came to be known, were
officially established in 1986 with
abipartisan invitational committee composed
of state legislators from more than
forty states. More than 10,000 prominent
political, civic and religious leaders
attended these programs between 1986
and 1992.

In 1987, to commemorate the two-hundred
the anniversary of the drafting of the
United States Constitution, Reverend
Moon founded the American Constitution
Committee (ACC). The ACC established
a network of offices in all fifty states
with the mandate to implement the CAUSA
teachings on a practical level. On the
seventieth anniversary of the Bolshevik takeover
of Russia, the ACC conducted demonstrations
in every state memorializing and mourning
the 150,000,000 victims of communism.
By the end of 1989, approximately 250,000
leaders from thirty-three nations had
attended CAUSA programs in the United
States. Over ten million people had
signed CAUSA petitions affirming the
existence of God and rejecting atheistic
communism.

CAUSA's opposition to communism is based
on an ethic of concern for the people in communist-dominated
lands. Hence, CAUSA was prepared to play an
active role in guiding the USSR into a post-communist
future. On April 11, 1990 Reverend and Mrs.
Moon met with USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev.
In their private discussions, Reverend Moon
urged President Gorbachev to allow full religious
and economic freedom for the people of the
USSR. A notable result of the meeting was
that the USSR leadership encouraged Soviet
legislators to attend American Leadership
Conferences. In December 1990 and February
1991, some 80 Soviet legislators, along with
60 cabinet ministers and members of parliament
from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary,
Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia , attended ALC seminars. Attendees included Mayor Gabor
Demsky of Budapest and Sergei Lushchikov,
then the Soviet Minister of Justice. Participants heard lectures on CAUSA's critique and counter-proposal
to communism as well as an orientation on
the underpinnings of Western democracy.

From April 30-May 2, 1991, the ALC sponsored
a World Leadership Conference, an
unprecedented seminar/fact-finding tour in Washington,
D.C. for approximately 200 high-ranking government
officials and political leaders representing official
delegations from all 15 republics of the Soviet Union.
This was the only time during the final years of the
Soviet Union that any person, government or private
organization brought together representatives from all
15 Soviet republics. In attendance were 26 deputies of
the USSR Supreme Soviet and some 75 deputies of the
soviets of various republics, as well as republic
vice-presidents, cabinet ministers, and ambassadors. The
delegation had meetings with federal officials in
Washington, D.C. and with city and state officials and
business leaders in New York City.

Reverend Moon began to reach out quietly to
North Korea in the late 1980's. Despite a
1987 assassination plot that was uncovered
by the FBI, he continued friendly overtures
to Pyongyang. In November 1991, Reverend Moon
traveled to Pyongyang and met with North Korean
President Kim Il Sung.

Following this, in May and June of 1992,
Reverend Moon proposed and sponsored a good-will
mission to Pyongyang. The 40-person delegation,
headed by former Congressman Richard Ichord,
targeted the cooling of abusive language toward
the U.S. and South Korea as the principal
goal of their visit. The delegation met with
Kim Young Sun, architect of Pyongyang's foreign
policy, and with President Kim Il Sung himself,
who hosted the delegation at a luncheon and
spent more than three hours responding to
their questions.
A few days later, as a consequence of
the delegation, North Korea cancelled its
annual anti-American demonstrations, which
had been
scheduled to begin on June 25th. They have
remained suspended ever since.

CAUSA
IN THE POST-COMMUNIST
ERA

Since the demise of the Soviet Union,
the American Leadership Conference continues
to hold seminars for state legislators and
religious and civic leaders; however, their
major focus is no longer communism but rather
strengthening the family and ethical values.
The ALC in conjunction with the Washington
Times Foundation sponsored a special conference
on the United Nations in 1995. It conducted
conferences for Latin American youth under
the banner of the World Leadership Conference
in 1996.

Reverend Moon's efforts in the struggle
against communist expansionism expended more
than capital. In the late 1960s and the early
1970s, Unification Church missionaries were
sent clandestinely to every Eastern European
country. In the USSR they were imprisoned
and later expelled. In Czechoslovakia and
Poland they were jailed for up to six years.
Several were executed after the communist
takeover of Ethiopia. CAUSA film-maker Lee
Shapiro, who had produced "Nicaragua
was Our Home," an award-winning documentary
on Sandinista atrocities, was shot to death
by Soviet soldiers in 1987 while filming with
the Afghan resistance.